The California Sunday Magazine was born onstage.
It’s a pretty unlikely story, how this brand-new thing made it here to you today.
For most of my career I’ve been a writer. Then, a few years ago, I wondered what it would be like to create a magazine for a live audience. So I recruited some friends and rented a small theater in San Francisco’s Mission District, and Pop-Up Magazine came into the world: a series of brilliant writers, photographers, radio producers, documentary filmmakers, and illustrators performing new, reported stories.
I called it a hobby. But we moved to bigger and bigger venues, until finally we were in a symphony hall. We collaborated with ESPN. We collaborated with Beck. It wasn’t a hobby anymore.
But what was it? Or, a better question: What could it become?
I loved bringing people together around stories. I wanted to bring more people together.
I thought about how we spend our time. Pop-Up Magazine happens at night, like a movie or live music, something you go out and do for fun. Weekdays, we scan so much media at our desks or in transit, when we only have a few minutes, and we’re not really paying attention. Nights are different. Weekends, too.
I thought about place. Pop-Up Magazine has always been proudly Californian. Proudly of the West. Most media gets made in New York. Nothing against New York, but the West is huge and fascinating and influential — economically, politically, culturally. And we’re surrounded by great stories.
So, working from my apartment, then a pie shop, then a borrowed office, I started turning these ideas into a new, independent media company, and gathering a special (and growing) team to build it.
The California Sunday Magazine will roam across California,
the West, Asia, and Latin America, telling stories for a national audience. We’ll explore science, business, entertainment, politics, technology, art, social issues, sports, food, and more. We’re curious about everything.
The first weekend of each month, we’ll have new stuff to share, on the web (californiasunday.com), on our mobile apps, and in print. Once we get the hang of that, we’ll start publishing two weekends a month and then every weekend.
Pop-Up Magazine is expanding, too. We’re inventing some new kinds of shows and coming to new cities, starting with Los Angeles this fall.
And there will be lots of experiments to come.
I’ve saved the most important thing for last: We need your help. Visit californiasunday.com/join, and I’ll tell you more.
Have a great weekend.